Billionaire to create Russian history theme park in Moscow

Russian billionaire Konstantin Malofeev has unveiled plans to build the country’s first Russian history-themed amusement park in Moscow with the project estimated to cost around 18 million roubles ($514 million).

Malofeev, founder of the Marshal Capital Partners investment fund, told news website Vedomosti that the new park should bring together “the richest cultural content” with “the most contemporary engineering and entertaining technology”.

He added: “We want to create not so much an amusement park but rather a place where people can really immerse themselves in Russian history for hours through grandiose performances.”

Malofeev has enlisted the help of French theme park company Puy du Fou International, which oversaw the conception and construction of a similar project Puy du Fou in the Vendée region in western France. The French amusement park, which brings to life periods of history from the Middle Ages to the Second War War with recreations of Roman chariot races and large-scale reenactments of the region’s history, brings in around 1.5 million visitors a year.

French politician Philllippe de Villiers who created Puy du Fou told Vedomosti: “Russia needs a large-scale tourism project which aims at developing the economy and glorifying the past.”

Although the exact location of the new park has yet to be announced, Malofeev said the project, which will use up to 300 hectares of land, will be built near the hotel and entertainment complex Hotel Tsargrad in Moscow which he owns. He added that the project should be completed within three years.